In the middle of the Calvin Klein boutique on Madison Avenue on Wednesday evening, Lloyd Blankfein admitted that he’d never before been in the store. “I’m a consumer, but I’m not a big shopper,” the Goldman Sachs chairman told VF Daily. Blankfein doesn’t pay much attention to fashion. “You could look at me and know that!” he said with a laugh. We were surrounded by the label’s expensive clothing and accessories, but he says he takes a “barbell” approach to dressing. “I have business suits and jeans,” Blankfein said. “And, by the way, which makes it very easy, I open up my closet, and there’s a dozen absolutely identical suits.”

So how does he spend his leisure time, if not shopping? “I have a wife, I have three kids, I try to read things that aren’t really related to business from time to time, and I spend half my time traveling,” he says. Plus, that job keeps him pretty busy. “My job is demanding, like everyone’s. But if I didn’t enjoy it, I could have stopped doing it a long time ago,” he said.

But Blankfein wasn’t there to talk fashion; he spoke briefly at the event, a cocktail party supporting Americans for Marriage Equality. He called marriage equality a major civil-rights issue, and also noted its importance for businesses to attract and retain talented employees. Just one example of several he mentioned: as a global company, Goldman sends its people around the world, and obtaining visas for family members not recognized as spouses is problematic.

Calvin Klein men’s-wear designer Italo Zucchelli noted that the issue is very timely, with the topic of same-sex marriage in political discourse right now. “I think it’s a very important issue,” Zucchelli said. “In the fashion business we’re very sensitive to this issue, because there’s a lot of gay people, and we all want to support this. And we all want to ask our gay celebrities or friends to support the issue, because the world needs to go on,” he added.

Among those supporting the cause and nibbling macarons in the shop were Neil Patrick Harris, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Alan Cumming, Uma Thurman, Josh Lucas, Carolyn Murphy, Jonathan Tisch, and Downton Abbey alum Dan Stevens, who is currently shooting a movie in New York. Stevens recently did a stint on Broadway and says he and his wife like the city and are considering taking up residence. “With the life of an actor, you never quite know what’s coming up, but we love New York, and we’re very happy to be here at the moment,” Stevens said.

His newly dark hair color is for a role, and Stevens doesn’t yet know if he’ll go back to blond when it’s wrapped. “We’ll see what comes up next, see what’s required, really,” he told us. “But, you know, it’s fun to mix it up a little.”

Also at the party was artist Ellsworth Kelly, who, in collaboration with the brand, re-created a dress he originally designed in 1952. The new version is displayed in the store’s window, and a series of Kelly’s prints hang inside.

“It’s so exciting that he’s here,” Calvin Klein designer Francisco Costa said of the artist, who will turn 90 next month. “It’s beyond exciting. It’s crazy that he’s here—it’s amazing!”

Costa made the dress, in a shorter version, as Kelly had envisioned. “He always wanted to re-create the dress. So he called us up, and all of a sudden, you know, we were working with Ellsworth Kelly. I said, ‘Shit!’” Costa told VF Daily. “I made two options, two different things: I re-created the dress, precisely like it was, and then I did something else, a little shorter. And he was like, ‘Oh my God, this is the dress I wanted then!’ So it was so lovely. But, you know, the magic behind the dress, really, is his colors and the way he saw it then.”

Kelly told VF Daily that Costa did a beautiful job. “It’s wonderful to see it, but I’m not a fashion person,” Kelly said, despite the fact that the piece will be donated to the Metropolitan Museum’s Costume Institute, while another version will go to the Philadelphia Museum of Art, which owns the original 1952 version. That’s a pretty good fashion pedigree. “Well, an artist can spread around,” he said.